I read an article on medieval finance and it spawned this. Finance, now with demons, bad guys, evil mazes and general skullduggery. books2read.com/u/4Aq0lq

I read an article on medieval financial instruments and it spawned this. Finance with evil mazes, bad guys and demons.

After a month or more of scenes drifting through my late-night head and being rejected, at last I can see how the heroine rescues the hero from captivity (not too dire - the cell is comfortable and the cook excellent).

Found the apposite quote from Thomas Paine: "The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a Spaniel." We see a parade of spaniels.

There is a certain morbid fascination in watching the mighty of the US - the CEOs, partners in big law, Ivy Universities - prostrate themselves before Trump in abject fear, mouths open to gulp down a dose of humiliation.

I learned today that destructive management fads go back to the 1840s (thanks Jeremy Bentham!)

One of the many charms of both history and fantasy is the number of unfired Chekhov's guns - all those people and places and things mentioned once which never re-appear. What is the history of Dorwinion? Who took the elephant to Aristotle?

Reading NAM Rodger's final volume of his naval history of Britain, and again reminded how very young liberal modernity is. Looks like lasting not much longer than the late USSR.

Elizabethan Piracy Like something from a romance novel: "Sir John Killigrew...head of the Commission of Piracy for Cornwall ..was the most notorious pirate in Cornwall". As had been his father and grandfather, while his wife dabbled in it part-time. From N.A.M. Rodgers The Safeguard of the Sea.

Writers following their characters In The Servant's Story Jayas was definitely a Bad Guy. Then he dragged me into The Big Score, and turned out to have an unsuspected other side, changing as he reflected on his journey. In the end I quite like him.

Wondering how a small town supports a bookshop offering tomes on arcane cookery and obscure history. Looking at you, Ragnor Bella (Vitcoria Goddard's lovely Greenwing and Dart series)

Even teenagers who love music have trouble putting in the daily practice. I think this experience went into Distracted, replacing music with magic:

Thinking about how fiction (and fantasy especially) casually kills thousands of faceless characters in apocalyptic battles. The dead of Verdun mostly got buried with names, and the rolls record the defenders of Stalingrad.

Best typo in fantasy spotted yet: "amble bosom'. Attracts wandering eyes maybe?